Seeing the Nation through the Territory: Some Historiographical Frameworks

Kantor, Iris

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Year:: 2016
Contributor:: Kantor, Iris (author)
Genre:: surveys (documents)
Subject:: Enslaved persons > Emancipation > Brazil; Territorial questions > 19th century
Extent:: pp. 71-85
DOI: https://doi.org/10.26300/7cjw-tr97

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Abstract:: Recent approaches to the study of Brazilian independence have provided a new framework for the classical interpretations of the emancipation process. In the last fifteen years, the bibliography on this subject has grown enormously, and comparative analysis with the Spanish American processes has gained greater density, depth, and contrast. However, the so-called Brazilian exceptionalism is still one of the major issues yet to be examined: how to explain the continuity and legitimacy of the House of Braganza’s sovereignty in South America? How was it possible to maintain the territorial integrity of Portuguese America given the fragmentation of Spanish America? The crisis of the old regime and the transformation of the dynastic state into a nation state led to the emergence of new territorial identities able to articulate the interests of the working classes with the interests of the upper classes, since they both shared a common geographical ideology, as Antonio Carlos Robert de Moraes wrote. The social groups that lived by the slave system, whether directly or indirectly, aimed to keep their social and economic privileges as owners and traders of the labor force, while the free and poor people could expand their access to land, with some degree of autonomy, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century, despite the escalation of the violence against the Indian people, and the intensification of the slave trade and forced recruitment of African labor.; Abordagens recentes do estudo da independência brasileira criaram um novo modelo para as interpretações clássicas do processo de emancipação. Nos últimos quinze anos, a bibliografia sobre este assunto cresceu muito, e a análise comparativa com os processos da América espanhola ganhou em densidade, profundidade e contraste. Contudo, o «excepcionalismo brasileiro» continua a ser uma das grandes questões por examinar. Como explicar a continuidade e a legitimidade da soberania da Casa de Brangança na América do Sul? Como foi possível manter a integridade territorial da América portuguesa, dada a fragmentação da América espanhola? A crise do velho regime e a transformação do estado dinástico em nação levaram à emergência de novas identidades territoriais capazes de articular os interesses da classe trabalhadora com os das classes altas, porque ambas tinham a mesma ideologia geográfica, segundo Antonio Carlos Robert de Moraes. Os grupos sociais que dependiam do sistema escravocrata, direta ou indiretamente, queriam manter seus privilégios sociais e econômicos como donos e traficantes da mão-de-obra, enquanto as pessoas livres e pobres podiam expandir seu acesso à terra com certo grau de autonomia, especialmente na primeira metade do século XIX, apesar do aumento da violência contra os povos indígenas e a intensificação do tráfico de escravos e do recrutamento forçado da mão-de-obra africana.

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Citation

Kantor, Iris, "Seeing the Nation through the Territory: Some Historiographical Frameworks" (2016). e-Journal of Portuguese History. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.26300/7cjw-tr97

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e-Journal of Portuguese History Vol. 14, no. 1

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e-Journal of Portuguese History

The e-Journal of Portuguese History (e-JPH) (ISSN: 1645-6432) is an international peer-reviewed scholarly journal with the objective of providing publication of work on historical subjects, especially those concerning themes and topics of Portuguese history analyzed in a comparative perspective. It …

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